European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 19, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes monday May 19, 1988 columns & comments Martin Gottlieb ignorance p lays important role in american you cannot read David Stockman s Book the Triumph of  Uii Hobt gaining a new appreciation for the role of ignorance in american politics. Here is a Guy who was by All accounts i he Mast informed person at he heart of the Reagan administration. And yet every few pages it seems he is having some new insight that invalidates much of what he and his cohorts have been saying. Of course these insights came after the election and pretty much after the policy die Lias been cast the Book is largely the Story of Stockman s failed attempts to convince others of the importance of his belated insights that s a Story about stubbornness More than  before that Story really begins the Reader comes la understand that the pre president it ignorance of the Reagan movement was not limited to its resolutely Blithe figurehead it extended to the people who present themselves As its intellectual leaders at least in the realm of economics David Stockman Jack Kemp a thur latter and less visible figures such As Judd wan Niski and Jeff Bell. These were the people spelling out to things would work in the intellectual journals in newspapers on talk shows and in meetings with Poten tial recruits including one fateful meeting with Candi Date Reagan although these Guys were impressing the Heck out of a lot of people in those Days with their Energy their lib acis their facts and their certainly it urns out Tom Wicker they were stunningly unknowing two. Prime examples Stockman says he Only came to realize How bad the deficit would  he realized How much it had been kept Down in the past by inflation which kept pushing people into higher tax brackets thus increasing the government s income. To enact a major tax Cut while cutting inflation he jays was really to enact two major tax cuts. Actually the drop in inflation Only Cut projected increase in revenues but his Point about the relevance of inflation still holds now Stockman was not the Man who discovered the Revenue producing deficit shrinking effects of inflation. Those effects had been understood for years yet he and his friends had been pushing hard for a simultaneous drop in the inflation rate and in tax rules All the while promising a balanced budget. The Federal Reserve Board was pursuing a Light Money policy. The Reagan administration eager to Lake credit for the resulting drop in inflation had to support that policy. But tight Money exacerbated a major recession by keeping interest rates sky High. This negated the whole Point of the 1981 tax Cut which was to Spur the Economy i also worsened the deficit the combination of tight Money and lax cuts was untenable and quite obviously and predictably so Stockman writes that a possible conflict Between the two policies raised yet another profound new Issue in my mind in late i98o that put him ahead of his colleagues but still remarkably late another important and know Ute fact the Reagan policy makers did t contemplate lax cuts can actually increase government spending in the medium term because they require the government to pay in Teresa on what it buys. The message in All this is not that Stockman and hit erstwhile friends Are a Bunch of jerks. Or that they Are Lazy although within the administration there is certainly Eno ugh intellectual laziness the message is probably this in the kind of people who drive political movements conviction is Likely to precede understanding and be mistaken for la. If the results of the Reagan program were so predictable Why did it get enacted anybody who wants id believe that democracy makes some sense must face the question the truth a the american people turned away in 1980 from a failing administration. The alternative was the republicans who seemed to think they knew what they were doing. In 1981, Congress decided that the Public believed that the new Guys should be Given a Chance. The administration had a free hand. The result was an ideological Binge which has probably had both Good and bad results the Good ones Are probably behind us. Cd new York Tom i Reagan West should t snub soviet openness aside Khom the death and misery suffered by so Many soviet citizens and perhaps other europeans president Reagan and the Western allies have plenty of reason to take quiet satisfaction in the plight of the soviet government fallowing the chernobyl nuclear i Miler. For one thing world Public reaction tvs clearly forced Moscow to an unprecedented degree of openness with other nations and even its own people notably including Mikhail Gorbachev s remarkable for a soviet Leader televised report on the Accident. For another in his Call for an International regime. To supervise reactor safety and provide the world Community with Early warning of such accidents As that Al chernobyl Gorbachev departed sharply from the soviet Union s usual insistence on excluding the world from its internal affairs. Finitely in an Effort to recover from what has been a body blow to soviet prestige and credibility Gorbachev a been pushed to take a new risk for arms control renewing his previously cancelled moratorium on nuclear testing despite the fact that Moscow has conducted no tests at All since last aug.6, while Reagan has ordered 11 . Tests in the same period. 1 All three of these development in effect Are sub than till victories for the West and ought to be regarded As such though without gloating or polemics. Unfortunately Washington s reaction has mostly been critical the charge for instance that the original soviet delay in reporting the Accident to the world proves that Moscow is not to be trusted to observe an arms control agreement with the . That remains to be seen but some other accusations against the russians clearly were undeserved. There were not 2,000 dead buried in mass Graves As a result of the Accident a second reactor was not involved no Complete meltdown occurred and it s not even certain that the original soviet delay in warning other countries was callous and deliberate. Nevertheless International anger was justified by the initial soviet secrecy even if it was More nearly the result of bad judgment human error and bureaucratic inertia than purposeful deception. But in a longer View the West might profit by emphasizing instead the More forthcoming soviet Altitude resulting from the world s expressed anger and demonstrated in Gorba Chev s televised speech. There was reason to believe before chernobyl that the depressed state of the soviet Economy had led a new generation of leadership to question if not yet to reject the cumbersome governing system it inherited and it has become a commonplace Western Obser vation that Moscow s technological need to Matte com Puter and computer education far More widely available ultimately will conflict with its political need o maintain tight control of the information available to its citizens now chernobyl and its aftermath have demonstrated further severe deficiencies on the part of the soviet government. It was unable la protect its people from s nuclear Accident and As a consequence has. Seen fit to Call for International assistance in preventing such Acci dents in the future. The High tribute that Gorbachev paid to american physicians though one of them or. Robert Gale has judge led that no nation is sufficiently prepared to meet such a disaster was a con cession that Moscow also needed outside help in caring for victims of the Accident. To Only one of these striking soviet developments has Reagan 30 far responded favourably. A White House statement welcomed Gorbachev proposal for an International regime based on a strength ened International atomic Energy Agency to promote nuclear reactor safety and to provide prompt warning and Supply or information in the event or a nuclear Accident. A judiciously warded and non polemical statement by Reagan taking note of and implicitly encouraging further soviet openness with the world and its own citizens also seems in order. If adversity forced Gorba Chev More toward Western ways of responding to crisis Why not credit him for ill predictably however the president s discouraging reaction to the renewal of the soviet test moratorium was As negative and illogical As Ever. 1c new York Tonui  Issue fms